


king wow's guide to friendly sprites and spirits

by jooniebeeCi



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Found Family, M/M, Magic, everyone else is magic, human sehyoon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28004058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jooniebeeCi/pseuds/jooniebeeCi
Summary: “See?” the owner of one of the pairs of eyes—a tiny person, maybe than two hands tall, with distinctly lizard-like features, wings, and a wide, toothy smile—asks. “The seeds are for all the birds and squirrels, and the bun he just set out is for us!”Sehyoon moves into his grandmother's house when she moves out, and starts leaving little food offerings in the garden, unwittingly attracting a certain group of magical creatures...
Relationships: Kang Yuchan | Chan/Kim Byeongkwan/Kim Sehyoon | Wow/Lee Donghun/Park Junhee | Jun
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29
Collections: le fantastique - a.c.e fic fest round 2





	king wow's guide to friendly sprites and spirits

**Author's Note:**

> based on the prompt "Sehyoon leaves food and water scattered on his garden for wildlife, but he's unknowingly magic inclined so it's not just animals he attracts"
> 
> hopefully I didn't stray too far from the prompt, but I had fun writing this! I hope you have fun reading it :]

Sehyoon loves taking care of his little garden. It’s his favorite part of living out here, away from the city. Out here, his house isn’t pressed up against anyone else’s, like his parents’ house in the city is. And there’s a little garden in the back, and the only thing on the other side of the low stone wall is trees. There are trees! There may not be three different convenience stores in walking distance, but Sehyoon can live with that when he has a whole forest right behind his house.

The house used to belong to his grandparents, but after his grandfather died, his grandmother moved to the city to stay with his parents. And when she moved in, Sehyoon moved out. That way his grandmother would have space in the house, and her old home wouldn’t be left empty. And there was a job opening in the small town, for a government clerk. It’s not exactly his dream job, but he’s happy for now. He doesn’t mind the endless paperwork if it means he can spend his Sundays out in his garden, tending plants and putting out birdseed so he can sit back with his tea and watch all the birds and squirrels.

He puts out food on the weekdays too, and it’s a nice way to start his morning. He can’t linger for long, but he goes out before work to set out birdseed. And just like he remembers his grandmother doing, he’ll leave out little offerings— candies or fruit or something from his breakfast. Whatever he has on hand to leave out for any gods (or whoever, his grandmother never really explained what she was doing in enough detail, and he feels silly asking about it now. But he likes to do it anyways.)

This morning, Sehyoon puts out his usual birdseed and an extra red bean bun before he goes to work, not noticing the tiny pairs of eyes watching him.

“See?” the owner of one of the pairs of eyes—a tiny person, maybe than two hands tall, with distinctly lizard-like features, wings, and a wide, toothy smile—asks. “The seeds are for all the birds and squirrels, and the bun he just set out is for us!”

The other pair of eyes belongs to a yellow throated marten, sitting next to the lizard fairy. “Are you sure about that, hyung? Does he even know about us?”

“Who else would it be for? You can’t feed that stuff to real wildlife!” Junhee scrunches up his face into a pout. “You shouldn’t doubt me so much, Byeongkwan, I’m older than you.”

“Fine, but even in this form I’m still taller than you,” says Byeongkwan, as he stands up on his hind legs and pokes Junhee’s nose with his paw.

Junhee makes a face at him, before flying over to the bun, left out on a little plate on the wrought iron table. “It _feels_ like it’s for us,” Junhee says, as Byeongkwan scurries up the back of one of the chairs so he can leap onto the table.

Byeongkwan fully intends to tell him that he sounds ridiculous, but when he reaches the bun, he pauses. It does feel… different, somehow.

He disappears in a puff of smoke, and in place of the marten now stands a young man, hunching over the table to sniff at the bun. “That’s weird,” he murmurs. “It seems like just a normal bun, but I definitely felt something.”

“Yeah, it’s weird,” says Junhee, before he somehow manages to fit half the bun into his deceptively small-looking mouth, rows of teeth chewing happily.

Byeongkwan grabs the other half of the bun and shoves it in his mouth before Junhee can finish it off. “No hogging it! You’re so tiny.”

“It’s not my fault this guy doesn’t put enough snacks out,” replies Junhee, smug little smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Byeongkwan hums. “Maybe we should tell him to leave more out.”

Junhee flies up to Byeongkwan’s face, attempting to choke him with his tiny hands. “I don’t like when you’re like this,” he huffs. “It’s too hard to discipline you.”

Byeongkwan just laughs. “What did I even do?”

“We can’t just _tell him_ we’re here. It’s a terrible idea. Even if we’re being pulled here on purpose, it’s a bad idea to reveal ourselves to the human.”

“Fine, I was kidding. But we’re telling the others, right?”

Junhee nods, and flits back down to the table to wait for Byeongkwan to change back into his marten form, so the two of them can sneak off.

Sehyoon, totally unaware of what happens in his garden when he isn’t home, just smiles when he sees the little bun is gone, and makes a mental note to leave out some of the apples he bought on his way home tomorrow morning.

Donghun is the third of their little group to see the garden and the offerings. He’s not as adventurous as Byeongkwan or Junhee, and he’s a lot less interested in being anywhere near humans. But he is the eldest and Junhee trusts his opinions on things, so he insists Donghun has to go see this place with him.

He even gets Donghun to agree to go on foot so they can go together. Byeongkwan and Yuchan are both convinced that if Donghun practiced more, he could carry others with him in his smoke clouds, but for now he can only dematerialize and teleport himself in his smoke.

He follows Junhee through the forest in his raccoon form, staying out of sight of any humans that might be wandering around. And as soon as they make it to the little garden wall, Donghun can feel it.

There’s some sort of magic permeating the air. It’s not strong enough for the others to feel it, but Donghun is much older than he looks, and a great deal older than the rest of their little group. He can feel even this faint amount of magic soaking into the air of the garden the same way the sun’s rays do.

“You two were right,” he tells Junhee. “There’s definitely something up with this place.”

Junhee smiles at him, flashing rows of teeth. “I knew it! Come on, let’s see if he left us anything good to eat.”

Donghun pads after him slowly. “Junhee… Do you know something about who’s living here?”

Junhee gulps and busies himself with investigating the little plate of crackers sitting on the table. Donghun, as the oldest and worldliest of the group, is always the most insistent on avoiding humans. It’s dangerous. The humans inhabit a different sort of world now, one that doesn’t really welcome creatures like them. “I’ve seen him once or twice,” Junhee finally admits. “If I’m here early or late enough, I can hide along the garden wall and see him come outside to set the food out or take it inside. But I never see or hear anyone else. I think he lives alone.”

Donghun frowns at him, clearly unimpressed with Junhee’s recklessness. But he knows Junhee knows how he feels about it, so he doesn’t say anything. “Did you sense anything about him?”

“No.” Junhee pouts. “I can barely feel it on the food though, if there’s anything about him to sense, I was too far away to notice it.”

Donghun hums thoughtfully, taking the cracker Junhee offers him and nibbling on it.

The others worry about being seen by humans, and suggest they should avoid doing anything that might mess up their low profile. But Yuchan hates being left out. It’s not fair! If everyone else gets to go to the mysterious garden and eat the magic food, he should be allowed to go too.

And there’s no way to convince him that it’s not a good idea for him to go. Just because he’s bigger than the others doesn’t mean he can’t be light and agile, and tigers are naturally good at staying hidden and unseen.

Of course, he can’t count on explaining all of that to work. So he spends a long morning chasing Junhee around and pouncing on him until the little lizard fairy gives in and agrees to take him.

It’s totally worth it, even though the garden is a little bit boring (all the trees are too small for him to climb in). There are tangerines sitting out on the little table! They’ve always been Yuchan’s favorite fruit, since he was growing up. He loves his new little family, Donghun and Junhee and Byeongkwan, but sometimes he misses his home. It’s a long way away now, but tangerines always feel like a little piece of home to him.

Yuchan decides he loves this place, boring unclimbable trees and all, and that he’s definitely coming back. The tangerines are practically fate telling him to come back, anyway.

And he doesn’t get caught by anyone. He’s great at staying quiet and hidden, and Junhee did not need to spend the whole way there and back clinging onto his neck and hissing admonishments in his ear. Well, most of the way. He would get quiet and clingy whenever Yuchan would take a particularly big running leap, which is always fun. He’s glad Junhee doesn’t really mind when he does that kind of stuff.

But now that he’s been once, Yuchan wants to go back again. Byeongkwan does too; after all it’s like those little snacks are _meant_ for them, the only thing missing is their names. And when Yuchan and Byeongkwan _both_ want something, they’re going to get it, no matter what Junhee thinks. Donghun is much harder to wear down, but as long as Junhee agrees to it, Donghun won’t stop them.

And they want to go together, because it’s not fair Junhee’s been going every time. They should all get to experience things together. And Yuchan pouting and talking about doing things _together_ is enough for Donghun to step back and leave Junhee to be the voice of reason.

Because Junhee thinks he’s being very reasonable here! The more of them there are in this random human’s back yard, the more likely they are to be caught. Two at a time, he can understand. Going more than once, he can understand. But ‘family bonding’ at the risk of being seen?

He agrees to it anyways. How is he supposed to say no to these two?

So all four of them find themselves clambering over the little garden wall early one afternoon. Yuchan switches to his human form to get over the wall without damaging it, but once he’s inside, he’s back to his tiger form and roughhousing in the shrubs with Byeongkwan’s marten form. Donghun hangs back, leaning against the wall in his human form and watching.

Junhee flits between them nervously for a minute, before he gives up on stopping the two youngest from whatever they’re up to. Instead, he settles himself down on the table, picking up one of the little hard candies that have been left out and popping it in his mouth.

It’s a nice candy, lemon flavored. As Junhee sucks on it he’s finally starting to relax. The houses are nice and spread out here, so even if Byeongkwan and Yuchan are a little loud, there probably won’t be any neighbors passing by to hear them. And as he feels his tension dissipate like the lemon candy, he glances back at the house.

Only to make eye contact with the man standing in the doorway, staring out at them open-mouthed.

Whoops.

Sehyoon doesn’t know where to look, standing in the back doorway and feeling very overwhelmed with whatever’s going on. He heard odd sounds coming from the garden, sounds that definitely didn’t sound like they were coming from the small birds or the squirrels he sometimes sees.

And it’s definitely not birds. When he peers out the window he can see something that looks an awful lot like a tiger jumping around. And a man standing against the wall.

He moves to the back door, hoping for a better look, and—survival instinct completely overridden by his curiosity—opens it to stand, open-mouthed, in the doorway.

With the door open, he can see there’s some sort of large weasel, maybe a marten clinging onto the back of the tiger, biting the tiger’s neck. And the man leaning against the back wall is just watching them, but now that Sehyoon is closer he doesn’t look quite human either. There are shadows around his eyes, almost like a mask. Although Sehyoon isn’t sure they’re shadows, they look more like smoke. Which doesn’t make sense. But they make him look a little bit like a raccoon with sad eyes.

And as he looks over to the table, his jaw somehow drops even further. There’s a tiny man sitting on the table, maybe tall enough to come up to Sehyoon’s knees, and he has patches of green scaly skin and wings coming out from his back. And he’s eating the candy Sehyoon left out this morning. And he looks like he has an awful lot of teeth for something so small.

The tiny man looks up, and if Sehyoon wasn’t so bewildered he would laugh. This definitely-supernatural creature looks more shocked to see him standing there than Sehyoon is to see something he thought was impossible right in front of him.

The man (or fairy, or very human-looking lizard) continues to stare at him in open-mouthed silence, while Sehyoon stares back—at him and at everything else that’s currently happening in his garden.

For maybe a minute he’s the only one to have noticed Sehyoon. Until the other man, with the raccoon-looking shadows around his eyes, looks up and sees him. His reaction is much more subdued, but he freezes, eyes wide and a little guilty before they narrow.

Still, neither of them says or does anything about the two animals tussling on the little garden path, so it’s a long while before they notice Sehyoon. But when they finally do, they scramble apart and look around wildly between Sehyoon and the other two, who haven’t moved.

The marten jumps up, and midair is replaced in a flash by a young man, with the same blond hair as the marten had, and a stylish track suit. “Hyung, it’s the snack man!” he calls out to the tiny lizard man on the table and _oh shit_ they must be the ones who’ve been eating the little offerings he leaves out for months.

Well. He doesn’t know who his grandmother intended her offerings to go to, but they are definitely magical and Sehyoon thinks that’s probably close enough. He watches as the tiger also stands up and _poofs_ into yet another young man, wide-eyed and smiling. Yeah, perhaps not gods like he might have expected, judging by the surprised faces and the athleisure they’re dressed in. But, they seem nice? For as long as they’ve been coming here and eating the things he leaves out, they’ve clearly been doing less damage to the garden than the birds that sometimes like to poke around and dig up all his plants.

Really, they’re basically just like any of his other slightly odd neighbors. Sehyoon is simply not going to worry about any of the claws and teeth and shadows and apparent magic that is present.

So he does the only thing he can think of, if any of his neighbors were already in his garden on a nice weekend afternoon.

“Would you like to come inside for some tea?”

The strange snack house man just invited them inside for tea and Yuchan thinks this might be the best day of his life. At least in the top ten. He’s having a lot of fun.

So he answers with a cheerful “Yes, please!” before any of his hyungs can say something else. It would be rude to decline the invitation anyways.

The snack man smiles at him—a very nice smile, warm and friendly—and gives them a bow. “I’m Kim Sehyoon. Welcome to my home.”

Yuchan hurries to bow in response. “Thank you so much! I’m Kang Yuchan, it’s nice to meet you.”

Byeongkwan and Junhee follow suit, introducing themselves, and then there’s a long pause before Donghun finally pushes himself off the wall to give a polite bow. “Lee Donghun,” he offers, a little stiffly.

Sehyoon doesn’t seem bothered, smiling around the garden and holding the door open, gesturing to invite them all inside.

Yuchan is the first one through the door. They usually keep to themselves and never get invited inside any human houses (at least not where someone’s currently living) and Yuchan finds everything about this place fascinating. There are chairs everywhere, little ones around the table and some big cushiony ones against the far wall and a full couch in the middle of the room. So many places to sit for just one person—Yuchan wonders if he has a lot of guests, or if he just likes having options. The place has a very homey feel, with papers scattered on the table and a blanket crumpled on the couch. There’s bookshelves against the wall next to the armchairs, with books and knickknacks and pictures displayed.

They all leave their shoes by the back door, in a little pile next to the slides Sehyoon takes off, doing their best to be polite houseguests. Although their efforts are quickly overtaken by their curiosity. As Sehyoon shuffles back and forth, heating water and clearing the papers off the little table, the other four wander around the living room, looking around and poking at everything.

Yuchan finds himself distracted by the picture frames on the bookshelf—photographs of a smiling elderly couple, and a girl that looks a lot like Kim Sehyoon, and one with the girl and Sehyoon and two more people; his family, Yuchan thinks. It’s nice to see them all smiling together, although it makes Yuchan miss his own parents.

He turns back to the little table when he hears dishes clattering, as Sehyoon sets down an old looking tea set and a plate of cookies. He smiles, scooting back over and claiming a chair, as Byeongkwan sits on his left. Donghun sighs and seats himself on the right, closest to the back door. Sehyoon looks at Junhee, fidgeting, and Yuchan nearly laughs. There are only four chairs around the little table, but Junhee wouldn’t be able to reach anything from a chair anyway.

Junhee saves Sehyoon the trouble of asking, flitting up to sit cross-legged on the corner of the table, between Yuchan and Donghun.

Sehyoon sits down and pours the tea for them, and Yuchan is picking up his cup as Junhee grabs a cookie, when a frantic looking Byeongkwan suddenly says “Wait!”

Everyone turns to look at him, and he looks a bit sheepish. “Are you sure we should eat the food?” he asks in a loud whisper that Sehyoon can definitely hear. “Isn’t that a thing, if you eat human food, you’ll be stuck in the human world forever?”

Yuchan freezes. “Is that a thing?”

“I think so! I think I’ve heard of it. If you eat their food with them, you get stuck and can’t do magic anymore,” Byeongkwan says solemnly.

Yuchan hears a snort from his other side. “We’ve already been eating his food,” Donghun says.

Their host doesn’t say anything to defend his food, just watching their conversation. He probably doesn’t know. Yuchan doesn’t think he’s the kind of person who would trick them on purpose.

“But what if it’s different, once you’re inside one of their houses, eating with them?” Even Junhee seems nervous about the cookie he’s holding now.

Donghun, for all that he doesn’t trust humans, is rolling his eyes at these worries. “Do you want me to go first? Test it out for you?” He’s clearly joking but Yuchan and the other two are earnestly nodding their heads anyways.

So Donghun, sighing, picks up a cookie, and with a nod to Sehyoon, takes a big bite and swallows. He washes it down with some tea, and turns to the others. “Now, I’ll shift myself to just outside the garden wall, and come back. Okay?”

His smoke cloud starts tendriling out around him, and when Yuchan blinks his eyes he finds himself standing on the dirt just beyond the garden wall. Everyone else from around the table is also standing (or in Junhee’s case, hovering) outside.

Yuchan turns to Donghun, who looks just as surprised as the rest of them. “Hyung, was that you? Since when can you do that?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t mean to,” Donghun says thoughtfully. But he holds up his hands, and Yuchan braces himself, and in the next second they’re back around the table, dropped back into their seats as the smoke recedes into Donghun.

“Looks like Byeongkwan was wrong about the food, at least,” Junhee laughs.

Donghun fixes him with one of his ‘stop being so embarrassing while I’m trying to think’ faces, and Junhee pouts in response. Yuchan and Byeongkwan snicker at him until the face gets turned on both of them.

And when Yuchan turns back, slightly embarrassed, to Sehyoon, he’s still smiling. He looks a little gobsmacked, still, but he looks happy to have Yuchan and his hyungs all sitting around his table, in his many chairs. And Yuchan thinks he really likes this guy. He hopes they get to spend more time with him. Plus his snacks are always great.

Junhee, not one to be deterred for very long, says, “Maybe the food does the opposite of what Byeongkwan said, and it just made you more powerful.” But even he looks a little surprised by the thoughtful look Donghun gives him in response.

“I don’t think it’s the food though. I think it’s just Sehyoon-ssi.” He turns to Sehyoon, and adds, “You have some sort of magic essence in you; it’s what drew us here to your home. This is probably how it manifests.”

“Oh!” Byeongkwan interrupts. “You’re like a reverse familiar!”

Everyone else at the table gives him blank stares, so he keeps talking. “Like familiars are supposed to be magical creatures or something that help witches channel their powers. But instead you’re a human helping us magical creatures channel our powers.”

Byeongkwan looks very satisfied with his explanation, and Yuchan thinks it makes sense. Donghun though, has to ask, “Did this come out of the same book of fairytales as the thing about not eating humans’ food?”

Byeongkwan just sticks his tongue out at Donghun, which means yes it did, but he still thinks he’s right.

Sehyoon interrupts before they can keep arguing. “So I have magic too? That’s cool!”

Byeongkwan makes a face, like he’s concentrating for a minute, and then his eyes light up. “You really do! I can hear what _everyone_ at this table is thinking. I used to only be able to do one person at a time.” He grins, and Sehyoon’s face starts turning red.

“You can read thoughts?” he asks in a small voice.

Byeongkwan just beams at him. “I think you and I will be very close,” he says. “You’re a very good familiar.”

Sehyoon smiles back at him, but he still looks very nervous so Yuchan jumps in. “Don’t worry too much, Sehyoon-ssi! He doesn’t actually use that ability very much, just when he wants to be annoying.”

“Maybe we should finish what we started in the garden,” Byeongkwan says.

Yuchan just giggles. “I think hyung is right though, Sehyoon-ssi! I hope we’ll be very close!”

“I think I would like that,” Sehyoon says, as he pours more tea for everyone.

Epilogue:

“Familiar-nim!” Yuchan calls out in his sweetest voice. He’s in the second bedroom of Sehyoon’s house, the room he and his other hyungs share when they’re here.

Moments later, Sehyoon pops his head in. “You know you don’t have to be so formal. You practically live here, and you eat all my food. Really, you can just call me hyung.”

Yuchan just smiles at him. “Familiar-nim, would you be so kind as to lend me some of your power?”

Sehyoon sighs, but comes in anyways to sit on the floor next to Yuchan. He’s not actually mad—he never gets mad at Yuchan or the others, even if he likes to act annoyed. Yuchan thinks Sehyoon was probably lonely before they came. He doesn’t seem like someone who should be living in this big house all alone. So he indulges all of their shenanigans for their company, and they’re all happy to stay. Yuchan thinks their little family feels more real with Sehyoon, like it’s complete.

Plus Sehyoon always lets them ‘borrow’ his latent magic, staying near them whenever they ask so that they can channel his power.

Which is what Yuchan is doing right now. On his own he can barely reset time by three seconds, so he never bothered with that part of his abilities. But with Sehyoon next to him, he’s gotten all the way up to thirty seconds.

He closes his eyes to focus, holding Sehyoon’s hand even though he doesn’t need to, and… _there_. A momentary tingle, and he’s far enough back that Sehyoon hasn’t come in yet.

“Familiar-nim!” he calls and moments later Sehyoon is, once again, poking his head through the door.

He’s about to speak when they’re interrupted by Byeongkwan yelling from the front room, “Yuchan! Stop doing that to Sehyoonie-hyung!”

It takes a moment, but when Sehyoon works out what Byeongkwan meant he turns a little red, both embarrassed and annoyed. Yuchan just pouts at him, knowing he’ll be forgiven.

“Sorry, hyung. I just wanted to practice.”

“Ah, it’s fine. Just tell me if you’re doing that.”

Yuchan nods, and says sorry again, before running off to the living room to find Byeongkwan and tackle him for ratting him out. Byeongkwan, of course, sees him coming and prepares his own counterattack, and then they’re both rolling around and tussling on the floor in front of the couch.

Sehyoon walks past them, trying to hide his smile, but he really enjoys the lively atmosphere around here now.

He’s waylaid on his way to the kitchen by Junhee and Donghun, who just came in from the back garden. Donghun is still in his raccoon form, and Sehyoon already knows they want him to make something. Donghun’s always too embarrassed to ask for snacks in his human form, but when he’s in raccoon form all he has to do is stand behind Junhee while the lizard fairy does all the pleading.

Sehyoon pulls out the strawberry candies he bought on his way home yesterday and hid in the top cabinet. He throws one bag to Byeongkwan and Yuchan, who start fighting over it. And he takes the other bag to the table, sitting down with Donghun and Junhee to share it.

The garden, with all its teeming nature, used to be his favorite part of living out here. But now it’s probably this—a whole new family, filling up the house and the garden and his heart.


End file.
